page_title: Cost of electricity by source
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Cost of electricity by source / Regional studies / Germany
caption_attribution_description: English: Levelized cost of electricity generation for Germany in EuroCent/kWh, source: Fraunhofer ISE, March 2018
context_page_description: Different methods of electricity generation can incur significantly different costs, and these costs can occur at significantly different times relative to when the power is used. Calculations of these costs can be made at the point of connection to a load or to the electricity grid, so that they may or may not include the transmission costs. The costs include the initial capital, and the costs of continuous operation, fuel, and maintenance as well as the costs of de-commissioning and remediating any environmental damage.
  For comparing different methods, it is useful to compare costs per unit of energy which is typically given per kilowatt-hour or megawatt-hour. This type of calculation assists policymakers, researchers and others to guide discussions and decision making but is usually complicated by the need to take account of differences in timing by means of a discount rate.
context_section_description: In November 2013, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE assessed the levelised generation costs for newly built power plants in the German electricity sector. PV systems reached LCOE between 0.078 and 0.142 Euro/kWh in the third quarter of 2013, depending on the type of power plant (ground-mounted utility-scale or small rooftop solar PV) and average German insolation of 1000 to 1200 kWh/m² per year (GHI). There are no LCOE-figures available for electricity generated by recently built German nuclear power plants as none have been constructed since the late 1980s. An update of the ISE study was published in March 2018.
caption: Comparison of the levelized cost of electricity for some newly built renewable and fossil-fuel based power stations in EuroCent per kWh (Germany, 2018)[46]
  Note: employed technologies and LCOE differ by country and change over time.
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